Foundation Year Study Skills Essay: Reading and Writing Strategies

This essay explores essential study skills for higher education, focusing on reading and writing strategies. It begins by discussing various techniques to improve reading ability, such as setting reading goals, applying key reading strategies, taking notes, summarizing information, improving vocabulary, reading intensively, and rereading for fluency. The essay also addresses effective reading strategies for online learning environments. The main body of the essay further provides suggestions to improve the quality of written projects, including strong grammar, sentence structure, practice, eliminating unnecessary words, choosing simple language, using attractive headlines, and keeping sentences and paragraphs short. The essay emphasizes the importance of these skills for academic success, highlighting how they contribute to better comprehension, effective communication, and improved performance in higher education. The essay concludes by summarizing the key strategies for both reading and writing, offering a comprehensive guide for students looking to enhance their academic capabilities.

Study Skills for Higher
Education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Discuss some strategies that students can use to improve their reading ability.......................3
2. Provide suggestions that will help students improve the quality of their written projects......5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Study skills are the skills to retain new information which help in developing knowledge.
Individual need to practice to maximize awareness and it benefit throughout the life (Al-Rahmi
and et.al., 2018). Study skills not always for students but it helps in organisation as well. This
improve the habits of learning such as reading, writing and vocabulary. It gives good marks and
performance in their higher education. Students are looking forward to develop study skills
which shows that children reveal to acquire more learning to study. It helps to boost confidence
and build their ability. With the help of this they can minimize fear to give tests as well as time
limit. The report covers strategies which students use to improve the ability of reading and
suggestions quality for written assignment. There are techniques to identify the reading and
writing skill to improve the knowledge and skills of students.
MAIN BODY
1. Discuss some strategies that students can use to improve their reading ability.
Learning is the method to acquire skills, ability, attitudes and behaviour. This is
important for higher education to develop their thinking and knowledge. However, reading skills
are the skills that able to read, understand and translate the language and words in own meaning.
This skills improves the pronunciation, word identification, spelling and vocabulary which helps
them to read in efficient manner (Chugh and Ruhi, 2018). Reading skills plays an important role
in higher education as it focus on routine academic tasks and studying process. It is the ability
that recognize the topics from training, lectures and textbook content. Students can understand
the articles which is able to determine ideas as this helps in reading along with the learning
attitude. There are many strategies to improve reading ability which are mentioned below:
Set reading goals: Setting a reading goals helps students to understand the meaning of
text, pronunciation and improve terminology as to develop ability and leaning power. They can
read those topics which subjects they are intersected to read such as management, strategic,
information technology and many more. With the help of regular reading, they can increase there
speed of learning and can phrase in own words which helps them to maximize the difficulty level
to read (Crompton and Burke, 2018).
Apply key reading strategies: Reading skills is improved by strategies which increase
comprehension. When students read something they can understand text structure such as

information and problems solving. However, this helps in developing reading as well as learning
skills. This gives lots of new information related to that topic which student read. While making
strategies they can practice to learn grammar and meaning of new words.
Take notes: This is the another strategy for improving reading ability. In this, student
may note down the words while reading novel, articles as well as taking lectures to conclude in
own language (Griful-Freixenet and et.al., 2017). This helps them to remember from written
notes as from book. Notes are best way to learn in short and get to the main point.
Summarize which you read: This strategy develops knowledge of which is read by
student with the help of summary. Summary plays an important role in improving reading ability
which focus to learn particular details and main topic as it easy for reading.
Improve vocabulary: While retaining reading ability, it also improves vocabulary which
help students in higher education to read and understand the work frequently. This strategy
benefits to learn new words in verbal along with the written communication and assist them to
make a list for unfamiliar words and search in dictionary while studying textbook.
Reading intensively: Intensive Reading is when student pay attention on specific details
which they are reading. This focus on particular word, spelling, pronunciation and sentence
which help to improve reading ability. This strategy improves to develop skills and language
(Hora, 2018).
Reread to build fluency: Reread can develop and encourage student to learn quickly and
decode word smoothly. So, they may fluent in reading comprehension. Reading the textbook
multiple times make student helps in boosting knowledge an learning power.
However, students need to concentrate on reading things which is taught by teacher in
class. Thus, previewing content make student confident and competent to read and learn. While
reading the passage they identify the punctuations, remove adverbs and adjectives. These
strategies improves the reading ability of students in higher education.
As the COVID pandemic took place in the year as they study from the online sources
because it has affected the education system of school, colleges as well as institutions which
hamper the academic skills of the students and they have no enough time to learn and understand
the topics related to their contents. Learning affected due to closure of institutions. This impact
the student activities, learning and examination. Government recommended to use online
distance learning due to this students are not able to study in an effective way. However, to

overcome this situations there are some strategies which they can read effectively which are
mentioned below:
Don't read every word: Student need to maximize their speed to read the syllabus. They
should read those sentences which are easily understood to reach the conclusion rather then
reading each and every words (Olszewski, Panorska and Gillam, 2017). It is the way by which
they can develop their skills and knowledge.
Not to read every sections: There is not much time to read and learn every part and
sections of textbook. They should focus on those paragraph which is important to read and learn.
Skip those which are not relevant for the related matter which help students to concentrate on
particular sections. Select the main points which are essential and helps to read in couple of
minutes.
Summary: Summary is defined as short review of the large content in small paragraph.
The aim of this is to understand quickly what material is saying about the article. Summary is
helpful to develop reading skills as well as to learn quickly. This shows the relevant information,
ideas which improves the learning memory. It is the best strategy use to read effectively in less
time.
Preview the textbook: Previewing the textbook make students grab attention on
headings, subheadings, definition and bullet points to read them in defined manner. Thus, it helps
student to improve reading skills as well as develop the knowledge.
Highlight the main lines: Outlining the points provide them to review the textbook and
can help to skip the summary as well. Thus, it defines the main point to understand the long
paragraph in the book. Highlighting lines and words make easier to read and ease to know the
topic.
2. Provide suggestions that will help students improve the quality of their written projects.
Writing skills is the ability to write clear phrase clear and meaningful sentences which
can easily understood by other person. It helps students to write and express their thoughts on
specific topic which they want to give speech in audience. In higher education, students write
essays and paragraphs in their sessions due which they can improve their writing skills in classes.
Good writing skills bring confidence to them in effective communication. When student gives
exam paper and write their answers in that paper they can get grade and achieve better

performance. Thus, this help them to learn spelling and retain knowledge. There are various
suggestions by which students can improve writing skills for project which are explained as:
Strong grammar: Strong grammar and spelling helps to express the sentence clearly to
understand language to others. This shows the quality in projects as it make sentence complete
and understandable. Students should learn grammar by practising more topics in written
language. This process improves their writing skills and abstract grammatical terms (Pereira,
Vilas-Boas and Rebelo, 2019).
Sentence structure: It makes sentence clear when student know the concept easily then
it can express meaning easily. If there is improper connectivity of sentence then it give different
meaning of topic. Use of connector such as on the other hand, other side and addition of this add
quality in written project. If any line is complex in project then outline it to go thoroughly.
Practice: Practice allows person to write in their own words which help them to
understand and learn better. This skill have student to identify their mistakes while writing.
However, it is the way where they can improve writing quality in projects and assignment. More
writing, proofreading in particular assignment which makes project simple.
Eliminate unnecessary words: Avoid using unnecessary phrases and words such as
replace unessential adjectives as well as synonyms words and add more words to give additional
details. There are some words which repeat many times in writing which are not useful for
explaining sentence. However, these words contribute nothing in the paragraph of project. With
the help of eliminating unnecessary words can help student improve written quality in project.
Choose simple words and sentences: Select and edit those words which are know by
others and yourself. Don't write those phrase which nobody knows as it make understandable to
person. Student should use direct and simple language which give crystal clear meaning to
understand and easier to read (Saiz-Alvarez, 2017). On the other hand, sentence paragraph
should be short because it gives convey idea and thoughts effectively in the written project.
Attractive headlines: Headlines gives attention to the readers about the inner content of
paragraph. Headlines is an effective way to make interest of the project reviewer. Thus, it makes
great impression with the readers. This can gives student project more clicks as it avoid others
projects. In addition to this, it provides real connection of the topic as it boost creativity in the
project.

Keep sentences and paragraphs short: This is easy for you as well as reader to read the
content. This helps person to engaged in the written line related to the project. Students should
write three to five line in one paragraph in the assignment. In the paragraph, one line of main
topic and after that the next sentence support the details of that topic and in last line complete the
topic. Thus, this manner helps student to improve their quality.
Break long paragraphs up: When project is small, avoid using lengthy and heavy
paragraphs. Student in their assignment should break the paragraphs in small sections to
understand easily from the previous line. Separate them which look like formal structure of the
sentences. Short length sentences gives students convey their ideas and thoughts properly and in
efficient manner (Šorgo and et.al., 2017).
There are some tips to improve the quality of writing project which are such as student
can avoid cliches in writing, do not start sentences with there and here, focus on the main point
which give attention to that related topic, write a unique content which help them to write
different material from other persons. However, this provide them to improve quality as well as
enhance their knowledge and learning attitude.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is analysed that reading and writing in higher education is
important for students to perform as well as to increase their grades. Study skills focuses on basic
ability in the learning process. It involves such as read, write and reasoning. When student not
have sufficient knowledge and learning then it will be challenging for every student. Reading
develops the information of concepts and allow them to perform effectively in higher education
whereas writing skills will achieve the higher marks in exam and projects. Students can improve
their reading and writing ability by vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, shorten paragraph,
spelling, phrases, avoid unessential words along with sentences and many more. Purpose of
study skills is to determine the methods which help in further study.

Online
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Ways to improve writing skills.2021. [Online]. Available through:
<https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/riyable/5-ways-to-improve-writing-skills-
16211/>
Improve reading ability.2021. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-improve-reading-skills>
Reading ability.2021. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.wikihow.com/Improve-Your-Reading-Skills>
Important of writing ability.2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://harappa.education/harappa-diaries/writing-skills-and-its-importance>
Tips to improve writing skills.2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://elnacain.com/blog/writing-tips/>
Students to build skills.2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.waterford.org/resources/tips-to-help-students-build-better-reading-skills/>
Improve student writing quality.2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.uww.edu/learn/restiptool/improve-student-writing>
Study skills.2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/study-skills.html>

REFRENCES
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